Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets |  | Author: Robert Kuttner
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
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Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 318608
Media: Paperback
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0226465551
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.973
EAN: 9780226465555
ASIN: 0226465551
Publication Date: May 15, 1999
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Amazon.com Review
Everything For Sale is an erudite reprieve from the deluge of books written in praise of free markets. Robert Kuttner fires back with a book that documents relevant, real-world examples of market failure and makes the case for intelligent intervention to attain more desirable outcomes. His exhaustive litany of successful (some, even cherished) government interventions in the market--from National Public Radio to the Internet--creates a persuasive case for a mixed program of political and market-based approaches in the shaping of public policy. When Kuttner pushes his argument for a culture with less commercial emphasis, his preferences exhibit an anti-market bias. But overall, his argument is clear and compelling, exposing blind adherence to market outcomes as largely arbitrary, ideological, and often, an affront to democracy. Academic economists who ignore the political desires of the people in order to protect the purity of their mathematical models draw Kuttner's fire in particular. He writes about ideas and economic details with great verve and ability. Kuttner's book is certain to be a touchstone of debate, if not reform, among public policy makers.
Product Description
In this highly acclaimed, provocative book, Robert Kuttner disputes the laissez-faire direction of both economic theory and practice that has been gaining in prominence since the mid-1970s. Dissenting voices, Kuttner argues, have been drowned out by a stream of circular arguments and complex mathematical models that ignore real-world conditions and disregard values that can't easily be turned into commodities. With its brilliant explanation of how some sectors of the economy require a blend of market, regulation, and social outlay, and a new preface addressing the current global economic crisis, Kuttner's study will play an important role in policy-making for the twenty-first century. "The best survey of the limits of free markets that we have. . . . A much needed plea for pragmatism: Take from free markets what is good and do not hesitate to recognize what is bad."--Jeff Madrick, Los Angeles Times "It ought to be compulsory reading for all politicians--fortunately for them and us, it is an elegant read."--The Economist "Demonstrating an impressive mastery of a vast range of material, Mr. Kuttner lays out the case for the market's insufficiency in field after field: employment, medicine, banking, securities, telecommunications, electric power."--Nicholas Lemann, New York Times Book Review "A powerful empirical broadside. One by one, he lays on cases where governments have outdone markets, or at least performed well."--Michael Hirsh, Newsweek "To understand the economic policy debates that will take place in the next few years, you can't do better than to read this book."--Suzanne Garment, Washington Post Book World
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 21
 A valuable read October 27, 2004
Vishesh Narayen (Naperville, IL United States)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
The point that Kuttner makes in this book is that laissez-faire markets are not always ideal in certain segments of society, and that in these areas, a combination of government regulation and market economics produces the best practical outcome. In the field of healthcare, for example, there are extra-market values--namely, the principle that no one should want of medical care because they can't afford it--that the market doesn't (indeed, CAN'T) account for. Another example is telephone regulation. If it were up to the market, rural populations would never receive telephone service, because the marginal cost of servicing these rural areas is too high. It is a valuable public good to ensure all citizens have access to a telephone in their own home. Laissez-faire economists (often unconsciously) use circular reasoning to find that markets are better. Or, more often, they simply take it for granted.
At last, an economist in touch with reality March 15, 2000
26 out of 35 found this review helpful
If you really want to understand how the economy works to create winners and losers, this book is the place to start. It is a dangerous book. Four hundred pages overflowing with historic detail. No simplistic models or mathematical equations. No easy answers. Savy analyses of real industries that will be helpful to any stock market operator. The book will be attacked by ideologues and some of its proscriptions are debatable. But no intelligent person can come away from it without a clearer understanding of our business system and the compelling need for mature political solutions to contemporary economic problems.
Wonderful and Dangerous! May 27, 1998
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
The measure of a truly great, effective book is the amount of panic it inspires in its enemies. Judging by the vituperative rhetoric coming from some of the free-market zealots who have read the book, Capitalists must be devastated by Kuttner's clear, rational, and persuasive argument.
Democracy not for Sale: a Fair and Balanced View of Markets November 5, 2006
Dean Smith (Gaston, Or)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Everything For Sale is a powerful response to the wave of ideologically motivated free market boosterism that passes itself off as works of sophisticated scholarship. Notice the subtitle: The Virtues and Limits of Markets. Kuttner does, in fact, praise markets for their strengths. He has little patience, however, for the abstract ideal of a pure market, which is as illusory as Kant's thing-in-itself. He asks that discussions of markets and regulations bearing upon markets account for the way things really work, with conclusions supported by actual case studies.
Instead what Kuttner finds is the scholarship of those questing for the grail of a pure market relies primarily on deductive reasoning, tautologies, abstract models and unlikely presuppositions (the rational maximizer, for example), rather than sound historical analysis. Of course, it is easy to cherry pick regulatory failures, but ideologues that ignore or misrepresent counter examples of regulatory necessity and success disserve the cause of democracy -- they see only the virtues, not the limits of markets.
Kuttner effectively argues for a nuanced view of markets and regulation in his discussion of health care and money markets, in his discussion of democratic, human and environmental values, none of which can be reduced to market values, but all of which appropriately rely on markets to varying degrees to achieve communal and individual good. Kuttner does not argue that regulation is always the solution for market limits and failures, but he decisively rejects that dogma that no matter how bad things are, government involvement will always only make it worse. He rejects the market vs. regulation dualism, and the cynicism that says market values are all that matter.
Everything For Sale presents a well reasoned and well written case for reevaluating the public institutions upon which our democracy (and markets) depends. If anything, it is a more important book today than it was when written in 1996.
Prescient August 20, 2008
John P. Jones III (Albuquerque, NM, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Amazingly so. Although the book was written almost a decade ago, it addresses issues that are tumbling out of today's headlines. After relentless efforts to loosen the dreaded "regulation" in the housing market, America is treated to yet another "market failure," and the very pitchman who were proclaiming the supremacy of "pure, unfettered markets" are the first at the trough asking for a government bailout; if the government fails to act decisively, then it will be bad for the "economy." Or at least Bear Sterns economy. Kuttner's book foreshadows this outcome.
I saw strong parallels between this book, and Bjorn Lomborg's "Cool It." In Lomborg's book he states very clearly that he believes the earth is warming, and that man's actions are responsible. But his central theme is: How serious is this? And what are cost effective actions given the other problems that could be solved? And the man is pilloried by the ideologues of global warming, who, in their most extreme manifestation, place any equivocation on global warming in the "holocaust denial" category. Kuttner states emphatically that he is a believer in markets, in some sectors of economic endeavor, like supermarkets, they work quite well. But he makes the (to me) obvious point that in most sectors the markets must function in a framework of rules that are designed for the overall good of society, and not just for the narrow framework of a few people's "profit maximization."
Kuttner writes from the perspective of an economist. Yet there is not a single equation in the entire book, but there is the economic jargon, by in large explained well, such as "externalities," that the general reader must master. As a counterpoint to the advocacy of unfettered markets for food, he has an excellent chapter on markets and medicine, in which he carefully builds the case on how utterly inefficient and ineffective "markets" are in delivering health care - and makes the comparison with the much more efficient methods of all the other major industrial countries, who deliver universal health care much cheaper, with far less paperwork. Perhaps the most stunning chapter is on the financial markets themselves. Surely if one sector should flourish under the free market ideology, it should be this one. Yet they invariably swing from manic highs to depressing lows; and when they "crash" all the talk of "no government interference in the markets" goes out the window - and talk of government bailouts comes in.
Kuttner shows flashes of wry humor, as he deconstructs the tautologies of the unfettered free market advocates. The later invariable start with premises that clearly ignore real world activity, and assume that a market's outcome is the highest and most efficient outcome, and then proceed to "prove" various premises. In short, they are closed systems, much like many religions, or the Communist party, that have the "answers" to any real world situation, as long as you accept the initial premises - and ignore real world outcomes!
One of his strongest chapters is "Regulated Competition," in which he builds a solid case for the inevitability of rational regulation, focusing in particular on the airline, telecommunications and power industries. His subsequent chapter extends his arguments to the labor markets - the human dimension.
His views are pithily conveyed in nuggets of wisdom on virtually every page. A couple of examples: "The peculiarly American version of laissez-faire," Schlesinger dryly observed, meant "aid from the state without interference from the state." And "Once again, `revealed preference' turns out to be nothing but denied options."
What I saw as a major weakness of this book, as well as the advocates of unfettered markets that he covers is the complete omission of the rules governing the "military-industrial complex" which is the essential engine of all American economic activity. All the "economic rules" go out the window when dealing with the artificial demand the complex provides - and the ultimate question is: Where would we be if this demand disappeared through an outbreak of real peace?
In the meantime, as we watch the "housing crisis" continue to unfold, this book is an essential read.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 21
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